eBay takes the cake for swift disposal

Ryan Smith, a finance manager for Gap Inc, came up with an answer for what to do with the fruitcakes his family received as Christmas presents - sell them on eBay, the world's largest online auctioneer.

Mr Smith, who lives in San Francisco, has six bids on a 500-gram Kentucky Bourbon fruitcake made by Trappist monks. He put it up for auction after his mother-in-law wondered aloud what she was going to do with it.

"I said 'Why don't we throw it up on eBay'," said Mr Smith, who has bought and sold baseball cards, mobile phones and toner cartridges on the auction site. "Who knew there was a market for fruitcake."

Internet auctioneers, including eBay and one operated by Yahoo!, the owner of the most-used group of websites, have stepped up efforts to capture listings of unwanted holiday gifts. Yahoo! last week set up its "Unwanted Gifts Showcase", a special site for such gifts. San Jose, California-based eBay, had a free listing day for sellers the day after Christmas.

"Even Santa screws up once in a while," proclaims the heading on the Yahoo! gift showcase, which features such ill-conceived presents as "Funky Chunk" platform shoes and a skull-and-bones pewter candleholder. The showcase, which is in its fourth year, has attracted more than 250 listings so far.

"We've brought it back every year and found it's been an attractive area of our website," Yahoo! spokeswoman Stephanie Iwamasa said. Yahoo! is the second-biggest US internet auction site.

eBay doesn't keep track of the number of orphan gifts that end up on its site and doesn't maintain a special section for them, spokesman Hani Durzy said. The cast-offs were one reason listings rose for several weeks after the holidays, he said.

The unwanted gift listings are a small portion of eBay's business; last year its revenue almost doubled to $2.13 billion, according to estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Its shares rose 91 per cent during 2003.

Shares in Yahoo! almost tripled last year as the company boosted advertising sales and investors rekindled their interest in internet firms.

People on eBay's discussion boards said they had sold gifts they had not used. A woman wrote that she sold scented skin-care items given by her brother-in-law, who knows she detests fragrant products. She sold the set on Saturday, a day after putting it up for bid.

"Now I have $30 to go out and spend on something I really want," wrote the woman, who goes by the online name liberty-b.

Mr Smith's mother-in-law may not have as much to spend: the most recent bid on the fruitcake was $9.49.